Computer networks such as the Internet provide a variety of different mechanisms that allow a person to perform communications and data processing tasks. One such mechanism is called the World Wide Web or simply “the web.” Generally, the World Wide Web comprises a collection of inter-operating client and server software applications which use a suite of data communications protocols to communicate with each other. A typical conventional client software application is a web browser and operates on a client computer system such as a personal computer or workstation under control of a user. The user can operate the web browser to access web pages that conventional server software operating on a server computer system serves to the web browser over a computer network such as the Internet. In some circumstances, a web browser can access or load web pages, documents, files or other information other than those provided by server software. By way of example, a user of a computer can operate a web browser to access web pages or other documents stored locally within a file system (e.g., on a disk) in that user's computer, without the web browser having to interact with a web server in a remote location over a computer network.
A conventional web page may include information formatted in a markup language such as the hypertext markup language (HTML). The web browser can load and interpret an HTML formatted web page in order to display or present to the user any text, graphics, audio, video or other data contained within, or referenced by, the web page. A typical web page can include one or more hypertext links, also referred to simply as “links” or Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) which can reference information not specifically contained within the web page.
A link or URL within a web page can serve a variety of purposes. Generally, however, links operate as location identifiers to reference other data or information not specifically contained within the web page that contains the link. Some links are called embedded links that reference data (e.g., an audio file or a graphic image) that is to be loaded into the web browser in conjunction with the web page, when a web browser accesses the web page containing the embedded link. For instance, an HTML instruction within a web page may contain in embedded link to a graphic file. Many different web pages may each contain an embedded link to the same graphic file. When a web browser loads any one of such web pages, the web browser, during interpretation of the HTML instructions within the web page, detects the embedded link and proceeds to reference and load the graphic image contained in the graphic file referenced by that embedded link. In this manner, the embedded link serves as a location identifier for the graphic image and causes the graphic image data to be incorporated into the view of the web page that the web browser presents to the user.
Other links within a web page may provide navigation functionality for the user of the web browser. For instance, a link within a first web page may reference a second web page. Such a link may not be an embedded link in this sense that a web browser that interprets such a link within a web page may not immediately reference the data or other information (i.e., the second web page in this example) referred to by the link. Instead, the web browser can present, render or otherwise display the link to the user along with the rest of the web page contents. A typical web browser implementation can associate a link to a text phrase, graphic or icon associated with the link. A user of the web browser that invokes the link, for example, via a click of a mouse on the text, graphic or icon associated with the link, causes the web browser to navigate (i.e., to load and obtain) the data referenced by that link. In the instant example then, a user may select the underlined link referencing the second web page, which causes the browser to invoke access to the second web page for display to the user. In this manner, a link can be used to cause a web browser to navigate between web pages. Web browsers often provide other web page navigation features such as BACK and FORWARD buttons that cause the browser to load a next or a previous web page, based on a history of web page location identifiers (e.g., URLs) of web pages that a user has visited (i.e., that the browser has displayed for viewing by the user).
Modern web browser software applications also typically include an ability to process web pages that include logic or programming instructions that can perform complex tasks within the processing environment of a web page provided by the web browser. As an example, most web browser software applications come bundled with (i.e., include an interface to) a Java or JavaScript interpreter (also known as a Java virtual machine or JVM) that allows the web browser to process web pages that include JavaScript. JavaScript is a scripting language that provides functionality much like a programming language within the environment of a web page. For instance, a single web page can include JavaScript statements (i.e., JavaScript commands and/or logic instructions) that can perform complex calculations, data manipulations, graphics processing or other tasks. A web browser typically causes such script processing to occur with the web page containing the JavaScript is loaded into web browser for presentation to a user. Other conventional scripting languages exist as well which operate within the context of a web page loaded into a web browser. An example of another of such scripting languages for use in web pages is VBScript, produced by Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash.
Typical examples of conventional web browser software applications are Netscape Navigator manufactured by Netscape Corporation, of Mountain View, Calif., and Internet Explorer manufactured by Microsoft Corporation.